Show your child how fingers are an abacus - fingermath!

Did you know that the abacus developed from the practice of ancient fingermath? Usually teachers discourage students from counting on their fingers, but this is very different. Like an abacus, the right hand represents the ones place and the left hand represents the tens place.

There is a wonderful book, The Complete Book of Fingermath by Edwin M. Lieberthal (1983), that shows parents and children how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide very quickly with their fingers.

Fingermath works for any age group, from preschool to high school and is very effective. Patterns, spatial relationships and time are the foundations of understanding math. Fingermath helps to build such numerical patterns and relationships in the mind, so that what’s on paper makes more sense, quicker. http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Fingermath-Simple-Accurate-Scientific/dp/0070376808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249156659&sr=8-1

Any child can become more gifted in math by learning the fingermath method. Purposeful parents would do well to give it a try as early as possible. They should also use every opportunity possible to help their children make patterns and sort things. Music is another great way for children to learn spatial timing, which brain neuron mapping enhances mathematics as well. Counting money supports number patterning as well.

A website with free printable math worksheets is www.edhelper.com